Darkness Embodied
by ArmedWithAPen
Summary: Secluded in the darkness of a desert night, a reborn Sith and a patient Jedi Master discuss the meaning of the universe. Obi-Wan/Ventress, of sorts. One-shot.


_A/N: An Obi/Ventress story because I love these two, and I wanted to counteract Dishes! XD Dedicated to crazy4asajj, my fellow Obi/Ventress shipper. I wrote this when I was young, be warned. _

DISCLAIMER: Come on, if I owned Obi-Wan or Ventress, there would be tons more flirting in _Star Wars: The Clone Wars, _and pooh! to Duchess Satine. _  
_

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Asajj Ventress had loved daylight.

By looking at her now, you never would have guessed. Her pale skin and frigid attitude would have fitted someone who spent their entire life in a cave, living on worms and bats, rather than a child who used to play everyday in the sun.

But, that was before…

She shook her shaven head to rid herself of the thoughts. Dwelling on the past was what had made her strong in the Dark Side of the Force. Her memories had given her enough hate and lust for revenge that she loathed everything and everyone. That was part of the reason that she had always made such an effective force for the Sith.

But now, on the side of the Jedi, who felt nothing, hate was not allowed.

It was probably for the best, anyway. Ever since she had rejected the darkness, she had found that…hate wasn't satisfying.

What was satisfying?

She hadn't found it yet.

Anyway, Ventress had loved daylight, sunshine, the simple pleasure of a warm, cloudless day. She had danced in light as a child, basking in the rays of her Ratatak's blazing sun.

And she had smiled.

A lip twitched at the memory.

And then her world had ended; her dark rebirth had begun.

Ever since, she had rejected the light, the sunshine.

This was part of the reason that she was here, now, sitting on the rock terrace of the clone base on this desolate planet.

The desert sands, painted indigo from the darkness of night, shifted below her, whispering like restless spirits. Stars twinkled white in a sky that stretched for infinity. A moon, misshapen from being pelted by a meteor when time had been young, glowed low in the west, bathing everything in silver light.

The night was her companion. She hardly remembered what she had found so beautiful about light before. Now, daytime was rather a nuisance. The comforting darkness of night was what really appealed to her, the surrounding blanket, the safety, the security. She loved the night.

And it showed.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had been leaning against the door leading up to the terrace, watching the assassin for close to ten minutes now.

It showed that she loved the night.

Darkness fit her, embodied her. He could tell. She was darkness.

It didn't frighten him, though it did make him rather uncomfortable. He didn't know how to relate to this tall, foreboding creature.

He had always craved light, sunshine. When he was a boy he used to wake up in the early dawn, just so he could quickly run out into the Temple courtyard and watch the red sun rise. Daybreak had been his favorite time of day.

And twilight was hers.

He didn't know why he felt so apprehensive around her all the time. She was a regal character, majestic, graceful in her movements. There had been times that Obi-Wan had even caught himself thinking that she was beautiful. But she was also sinister, a kind of terrifying beauty, like a black storm cloud in the distance.

But, then again, he had been afraid of the dark since he was a child. He always dreaded nighttime because of the nightmares of black, slinking creatures lurking in the shadows of his room.

He smirked. He remembered when he had begged Qui-Gon for a nightlight. He hadn't been able to stand the darkness, even at nighttime.

He had always needed some kind of light.

Ventress had felt him standing there, watching her for what felt like an eternity. His warm azure eyes were burning a hole in the base of her skull.

"Is there something you would like, Master Kenobi?" she asked politely.

The silence broken, Obi-Wan felt a little more at ease with speaking. The wind ruffled his russet hair as he strode towards the lady.

"Actually, Ventress," he said, coming to stand beside her. "There is."

She turned towards him. He couldn't help but notice just how piercingly silver her eyes were, like hard steel. And the moon reflecting through them gave the effect of them shining with a mixture of ice and starlight.

"I would like to know," he said, looking her in the eye, "why you are here right now, when most everyone else is still asleep in their bunks?"

She cocked an arched eyebrow. One eye twinkled, and Obi-Wan's heart surprised him by giving a sudden leap in his chest. Unusual.

"Everyone except you, of course." Her lip twitched at the corner. A smile?

"Yes," the Master conceded, smiling widely in return. "Everyone except me."

Ventress had to fight back a grin. He never seemed to stop smiling. He smiled brightly whenever he greeted her in the morning. He smiled politely whenever he met with those dignitaries that she knew he hated. He smiled broadly whenever Kit Fisto cracked a bad joke at the breakfast table. And he always smiled impishly whenever they were fighting, with fists or with words.

She liked it.

"Well," she muttered, turning her gaze from his face to the sea of sands, "I was up here…just thinking."

He followed her stare, his own eyes sweeping the dunes, blowing like small tornadoes in the breeze always kissing them. "Thinking?"

"Yes." She sighed. "Thinking."

She almost followed it with 'A thing you probably aren't familiar with,' but something made her stop.

"Do you mind if I ask what you were thinking about?"

Her steel eyes traced a lazy line up from the peak of a rather large dune in the distance, up to the zenith of the indigo sky. "Most of the time, I would mind."

He nodded. Why had he even asked? He had known the answer before the question had even left his lips. Why did he want to know what was on this woman's mind?

"I am in a good mood, this morning," Ventress continued, interrupting his thoughts, "so I will tell you what I am thinking."

She sat, cross legged on the roof, her eyes staying fixed on one star that burned particularly bright. It flickered with splashes of pink, green, and white, and sometimes flashed an electric white blue.

_Almost the color of his eyes. But not quite. Too cold. His are much warmer. _

The thought had just sprung into her head. She quickly banished it, making a mental note to find which part of her mind it had originated from, and obliterate it.

She continued without a hitch, and Obi-Wan didn't seem to notice her pause.

"The sky is so big," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "And the universe is infinite. Do you know what that means?"

Obi-Wan wordlessly shook his head.

"That means that, if we took off in a ship and didn't stop forever, by the end of forever, we'd still be going. We could never reach the end."

She sat back on her hands. "It's unfathomable. And it makes you wonder. We are…so small. We live in our own little bubble without a thought, without a care in the world. And we don't think about anything bigger than ourselves."

She gestured at the sky grandly. "Does anything we do here, in our world, matter at all? In the scheme of things, the infinity of the universe, does anything we do matter in the end?"

She left the question hanging in the air, poignantly. Then, she leaned back on her elbows, the wind making her top ruffle gently. "It just…makes you wonder."

Obi-Wan stared at her. Just stared. She pretended not to notice, just looking at the sky. She suddenly felt very self conscious. What would he care what she thought? Especially when she was thinking such mushy thoughts as this.

He cleared his throat, turning back to the dunes. "Well," he said, giving a quirky little smile. "Those are…rather heavy thoughts for early morning."

Well, at least he hadn't made fun of her.

Encouraged, she sat up, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "What are we even here for?"

Obi-Wan wondered whether she wanted an answer, or whether the question had been rhetorical. He decided to reply, whether she was expecting it or not.

"Love."

The word had been instant and immediate. He hadn't even thought about it.

She paused in everything, even breathing. She looked at him and found herself looking at his profile, highlighted silver by the moon. His eyes were deep and bottomless as he stared out across the desert planet.

"Love," he said, crossing his legs and turning his torso to stare into her soul, "Is the reason for our existence."

She seemed to digest this for a minute. For some reason, Obi-Wan thought he saw a flicker of molten iron flash across her eyes, but then hard flint returned.

"Love," she sneered, suddenly very contemptuous for a reason she didn't quite know. "Love is a right fool's word, isn't it?"

He frowned, suddenly over come by her mood swing. One minute she was being perfectly philosophical and reasonable, and now, when he had offered his candid opinion, she was mocking it. He began to be rather angry.

"To a Sith it might be," he spat, letting his temper go. "You know nothing of love—"

He clapped his hands to his mouth quickly, his eyes wide. How did she do it? He had lost the one thing that he thought he had mastered control over; his temper.

The Jedi's words cut Ventress deeper than she wanted to admit. She stood stiffly.

"I have felt love, Master Kenobi," she said, so quietly she almost couldn't hear it herself. "I have felt such love it seems too good to be true now. Such love should not exist but in a dream."

She suddenly felt something roll down her face. It was wet, and left a cold trail where it strayed, and when it landed on her lips, it tasted salty.

She was not crying. She most certainly was not!

Obi-Wan watched the tear with horror. It was out of place on Ventress' severe, hard face. Her eyes betrayed nothing of sadness. It was as though the tear had slipped out without her even knowing it was coming.

He sprang to his feet. "Ventress…"

The warrior goddess wiped the impudent bead of water from her eye quickly, but it was no use because another one quickly took its place.

"Oh, Ventress," he said, helplessly. How on earth had he managed to make the cold, proud Ventress cry? "Don't cry, please."

"I'm not crying!" she insisted, wiping away still more tears that wormed their way onto her smooth, pale cheeks. "I just…I…"

She found she couldn't speak. Her throat had swelled with something she had never felt before, something she had tried to squash out of herself the first day after it had happened. There had been no room for grief back then…only hate, and anger, and pain.

And now, finally, the unshed tears were pushing through her fortress walls.

And, she muttered in a pathetic, weak, moment that she was sure she would regret for the rest of her life:

"I…miss…love."

And Obi-Wan, without a clue what to do, did what came to him.

The Jedi Master crossed the five feet distance between himself and the assassin in one stride, reached for her, and pulled her into his arms.

She wasn't shocked. She was rather numb. Never had she felt like this before. All the memories of that day suddenly flooded back to her like a tsunami. The faces, the flashbacks, everything. The day her parents had been killed, the day her first master had been killed, the day everything turned on its head…the memories had returned for the sadness.

And Ventress, cold, hard as nails, tough as leather Ventress, sobbed into Obi-Wan's shirt.

The Master didn't know what he was doing. All he knew was that it felt right. She hadn't pulled away. In fact she had leaned into him, and now he wrapped his arms around her shaking shoulders.

"Shh…" he soothed, speaking softly. "Ventress…I'm sorry."

He didn't know whether she had heard the words at first. But she clenched wads of his sleeves in either fist tighter, and her heart-wrenching sobs intensified.

They must have stood there for…half a minute? Half an hour? Half a day? Half an eon… Time seemed to have become obsolete. The Jedi stood there, on the rooftop, his back straight, his head bent, his cheek pressed against the shaven head of the Sith who clung to him like a life raft.

Finally, Ventress' sobbing began to ebb, and her death grip on his tunic began to relinquish. She breathed deeper, her chest rising and falling against Obi-Wan's.

"Are you alright?" he murmured.

His breath tickled her ear. "…I…I think I am. For the first time…in years."

His cheek tightened against her skin. And the smile felt genuine.

He pulled back, almost reluctantly. He took her face in both gloved hands, brushing her cheeks with his thumbs. She gave the most timid lip-twitch up at him.

A smile.

"C'mon," he said, turning towards the door leading down into the base. "Let's go have some breakfast."

She stood awkwardly on the roof for a minute, not quite sure of what to do.

Suddenly, the sun broke over the horizon, shimmering like liquid fire. And she turned to look at it.

The brightness dazzled her eyes. But for some reason…it didn't bother her like it would have…just half an hour ago.

She turned back to Obi-Wan, the sun behind her, and, her timid smile gone and her stony features as imperceptible as ever, she strode towards him.

As she passed him, she felt their shoulders brush. And she also heard Obi-Wan's pulse beat a little bit faster under his ribs.

She repressed a smile as she quickly descended the steps, the Master right behind her.

And for the first time in a long time…she felt love.

FIN.

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_A/N: ARGH! *vomits from all the cheese and corn* The writing style isn't as bad as I though it was going to be, but still...XP Well, I hope you guys enjoyed it. Review, please! _


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